Reaching the boat, and emptying it of water, I fixed the oars in their place, and without thought shoved it into the stream. At this, the wind and waves taking it up in their arms as if it were a plaything, hurled it back upon me, and with such force that I came nigh to being crushed with its weight. Awaiting a more favorable moment, I sprang into the boat, and doing so, pushed it into the boiling water. Little, however, could I do now that I was afloat and held the oars, for, enveloped in darkness, the waves flying before the storm so tossed me about that effort to make headway was lost in striving to keep afloat. Then the wind, veering with the windings of the river or overhanging trees, bewildering me, I was fain to sit still and wait some clew to guide me. This the stream would have done, but tossed by the wind, it lost its force, so that I could not tell which way it ran, if indeed it had any direction at all. While thus striving to make headway, the Penitent’s bell came to me across the splashing water, but now at longer intervals and indistinctly, as if those who rang it were faint or dying. Chilled by its stroke, it yet helped to guide me, so that I struggled on the more hopefully because of it. In this way I after a while reached the middle of the stream, and now I made greater headway; but going on, the bell grew faint, and then at last ceased its tolling altogether. Filled with new fear lest losing its guidance I should after all go astray, I put forth all my strength to gain the farther shore. Of sign of it, however, or other thing, save the spray of the white-topped waves as they swept over me and across the boat, there was none. Nor could I hear any sound save the whir of the wind and the churning of the waves as they beat against the boat or fell back into the angry stream. Going on, with scarce anything to guide me, I came at last within the shadow of the forest, feeling which I gave a shout. For, listening, I could now plainly hear the water as it beat against the shore, and above it the roar of the wind as the trees bent beneath its force. Putting forth all my strength anew, the boat in a moment grated high on the shelving beach, and I was safe.